


the capacity of you

by LeilaKalomi



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angry Crowley (Good Omens), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Hates the 14th Century (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Being a Demon (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Depressed Crowley (Good Omens), Holy Water, M/M, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Oblivious Crowley (Good Omens), Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22836874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeilaKalomi/pseuds/LeilaKalomi
Summary: What if Aziraphale could take away Crowley's inconvenient feelings, but the only catch is he has to feel them himself?
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 33
Kudos: 136





	1. Aziraphale/Before

Contrary to popular belief, Aziraphale met the demon Crawly inside the Garden of Eden, not on the wall shortly before the first rainstorm. It was only because of this that Crawly later approached him, after he’d done his first temptation and gotten the humans banished. Aziraphale felt flustered, foolish. It never occurred to him to feel used. The overwhelming sensation he had was only one of uncertainty.

He’d seen Crawly in the garden without knowing what he was seeing. In Heaven, they’d only shown him pictures of demons that looked roughly like angels or humans. He’d heard they could take other forms, but he hadn’t seen it himself. So when he saw the shiny black serpent, he’d watched it, coaxed it to linger so he might get a closer look. It had tried to slither away at the sight of him. It should have tipped him off—none of the other animals were afraid of an angel.

He hadn’t thought much of it until it happened. And now Crawly is there, on the wall beside him. Talking to him. There is something provocative in his tone. He was clearly the snake from earlier. He was clearly a demon. Aziraphale felt a fool.

There is nothing for it but to double down. He refuses to acknowledge having done anything inappropriate. He pretends to take Crawly at face value.

But somehow, even that has unintended consequences.

Crawly reassures him. Doesn’t call him on any of his foolishness. Doesn’t seem to think he _is_ foolish. He looks at Aziraphale like he finds him interesting, like he wants to talk more. And then he steps closer. Aziraphale’s chest clenches warmly. Oh, dear, is it supposed to do that? Crawly looks nervous, raises his eyes to the sky. Oh, the rain.

Aziraphale raises a wing over his head, chest still warm.

“Don’t worry,” Aziraphale says. “It’s not holy.”

Crawly’s mouth opens a little, like it did when Aziraphale told him about the sword, but he doesn’t say anything this time. Just nods, like he understands something that Aziraphale does too, like they have a secret, that’s good only as long as neither of them says it out loud.

* * *

As they step onto the Ark, Aziraphale searches for Crawly. Wants to ask him to come along. Otherwise, it will be a long, boring trip with only the humans for company. But Crawly is nowhere.

Aziraphale jumps down from the gangplank. The ground isn’t saturated yet, but the rain has started, warm, fat drops that land against people’s skin with a thwacking sound. The sky has darkened terribly. Earlier, Aziraphale had a thought, of sheltering Crawly from the rain; had a thought that it would be what he did again, if he could find him. If he would come.

The people can not reach the Ark. That was Aziraphale’s doing. (It hadn’t been his choice!) None of them are even trying. They all stand there sedate, as if they don’t know or have already accepted their fates.

There’s a minor kerfuffle on the boat as Aziraphale wends his way through the crowd, unseen. He turns to it, sees a black serpent, sliding through the wet sand. The rain begins in earnest now. The people turn and walk away. They won’t get far. Aziraphale thinks Crawly will come to him, but the next time he looks, the serpent is gone.

Aziraphale does not board the Ark.

Aziraphale finds Crawly that night. He’s sitting against a bush, knees pulled to his chest. Aziraphale recognizes him from a distance, even in the dark, and starts for him. He expects Crawly to start with recognition, but he doesn’t look up. As Aziraphale gets closer, he can see that Crawly’s face is pressed to his knees. He can hear that Crawly is weeping.

Aziraphale had not thought it possible, had thought the demon was jesting when he’d spoken about the children dying earlier; when he’d questioned the Almighty, it had felt like the groundwork for a temptation. Crawly had told him in the Garden that he had only Fallen for asking questions. So Aziraphale was careful that he never did. And when Crawly had done it in front of him, Aziraphale had seen what he was doing. Or he thought he had. But now he’s not so certain, and more than that, he finds the sight of Crawly in tears causes his chest to clench again, causes him to reach toward him, unthinkingly. He reminds himself that he’s not supposed to protect demons, not supposed to comfort or reassure them, or ache to see them hurt. But he can’t ignore his empathy.

“Crawly?” he says, softly.

“Don’t,” the demon says. “Just fuck off will you?”

“I won’t,” Aziraphale says. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? You’re asking _me_ what’s wrong? That’s what’s wrong. You’re the one who’s supposed to be full of love and compassion and caring, and you have to ask me what’s wrong? That’s it. That’s the whole of it, _angel_.”

“Crawly, please,” Aziraphale says. “I’m not consulted on these things. I told you.”

Crawly’s eyes narrow. Aziraphale sighs and thinks briefly of walking away. Of leaving him to stew. If he is really as heartbroken as he seems, perhaps it is all to the good. Perhaps it is a teachable moment. But that’s nonsense, Aziraphale realizes. He’s a demon. There’s no saving him.

It suddenly seems unfair.

Aziraphale sighs and steps closer to Crawly, sits down next to him, pressing his back against the bush.

Crawly ignores him, but he stops weeping.

“I can’t do this,” the demon says, finally. “I can’t...be here like this. It’s...sometimes I wish I’d just been killed in the War. Better than _this_.”

Aziraphale’s chest clenches, but this time it feels cold, rather than warm. He doesn’t mean to do it, just reaches for his hand, presses his own over it, and tries to take some of Crawly’s grief away from him.

It works.

The force of it hits Aziraphale like a weight dropped on him, he’s suddenly filled with it, with Crawly’s grief draining into him, forcing tears to spring to his own eyes, wrenching a sob from his own throat. He swallows it. Turns to Crawly and forces a smile. “There,” he says, gently. Now, he thinks, they can talk, but Crawly jerks his hand away.

“What the Heaven kind of angel are you?” he snaps, wiping his face angrily. He stands up. “I’m getting out of here. Don’t like you poking about in my head.”

Aziraphale gasps with the pain of it, Crawly’s feeling, and his rejection. Aziraphale thought he was being kind, but Crawly stares as if Aziraphale is a fool, something to be pitied by those with softer hearts. He shakes out his robe, and stalks into the night. Aziraphale watches as he walks away. When he’s out of earshot, he lets the tears return. He weeps for a week before he can move on.

* * *

But it’s Crawly who approaches him in Golgotha. Or, rather, Crowley, he says. Aziraphale does not distance himself. How can he, when he has taken the demon’s grief into himself, when he knows that it is real, that this demon, at least, can feel, and feel so terribly.

The demon does not _apologize_ for the last time, exactly. But when they walk away, he does not trouble to hide his tears. And strangest of all, when they are out of sight of the people assembled to gawk and mourn, he takes Aziraphale’s hand in his.

“Oh,” Aziraphale says. Crowley jerks away.

“Sorry,” he says.

“Oh, no,” Aziraphale says. “You don’t have to be.”

The demon’s face twitches angrily, and then softens. His face scrunches, then caves in on itself, and he falls to his knees. “God, angel,” he says. “I _knew_ him. I fucking _knew_ him.”

Aziraphale looks around. Anyone could be near. It’s almost _expected_ at a moment like this, for some representative of Heaven to appear, but so far he hasn’t spotted anyone. He hesitates, but watching Crowley cry is unbearable. He drops to his knees too, and reaches for him.

He doesn’t take the demon’s grief this time. Just holds him, rocks him until Crowley collapses against him. He feels warm and alive. He feels like the center of the world. Aziraphale wishes he did not suffer so. In the distance, he glimpses something, feels something, tenses. Gabriel.

Crowley feels him tense, looks up, but he’s still weeping.

“Go on then,” he says.

Aziraphale presses his eyes closed and raises a hand to Crowley’s face. He only takes a little, but Crowley goes limp with the relief. It’s enough of a reward that Aziraphale doesn’t mind compounding his own feelings. He bites them all back.

“Better get out of sight,” he whispers. Crowley is calm enough to swallow now, calm enough to let go of him, stand up, and walk away.

Aziraphale doesn’t approach his Heavenly colleague. He finds a cave where he can sort out his thoughts, and separate his emotions from Crowley’s before it’s time to move on.

* * *

They meet again in Rome. Crowley, in his odd clothing, makes Aziraphale conscious of his own carefully chosen attire. He feels oddly protective of the “barbarian.” After oysters and too much ale, Aziraphale takes him to his own home (Crowley does not want to go back to the palace), puts him to bed, and brushes his fingers across Crowley’s head until he is sure what Crowley wants. Finally, Crowley opens his eyes and looks at Aziraphale.

“Please, angel,” he says.

So Aziraphale takes it. The disgust, the guilt. Then he guides Crowley to sleep and leaves him there in his room. He finds a quiet corner in the baths, or maybe he makes it. It doesn’t matter—he does not feel that he can get clean. He never asks Crowley what he has done to feel so dirty.

* * *

It’s different when they meet at Wessex. Crowley is trying, Aziraphale can see that. He is trying very hard to be properly demonic. Aziraphale is appalled. But he makes the trip again, to those dark, damp woods, alone, to discuss this _Arrangement_.

“It’s only…” Crowley says. “You helped me. See? I don’t want to owe you. So, way I see it. You do me one, I do you one. Or...three now, in’t? And then we can just...pick up.”

“I would ask you to do the Lord’s work,” Aziraphale says, clearly, as if he is speaking to a child.

The demon rolls his eyes.

“Whose work do you think you’re doing when you...soothe me or whatever it is? It’s not the _Lord’s_. I’m a demon, Aziraphale. In case you need a reminder. I didn’t forget what _you_ are.”

Aziraphale blushes.

“Fine,” he says. His face is burning, and he needs to go.

“Fine? All right, then?”

“All right,” Aziraphale says. He stands. “So, then, you’ll stop this Black Knight nonsense?”

“That’s one,” Crowley says. “Go on, then. Two more.”

* * *

After Crowley does three things for Aziraphale, Aziraphale does not seek him out again. He has a nasty feeling about the vassal system, about the innovations in war technology that spring up around them. But Aziraphale decides it’s better for him not to know.

It is not until 1388 that he sees Crowley again. He’s in stocks in the middle of a village, and people are throwing things at him. Spoiled food. Dead rats. His eyes, uncovered, are closed, and he hangs limp, hair shorn. His clothing hangs on him in dirty rags. Aziraphale gasps, runs straight to him without thinking.

“Sir!” a man calls.

“You there, stop!”

These cries die down, the people disperse without knowing why. Aziraphale reaches Crowley without obstacle, takes him down from the stocks. Crowley collapses, his body folding in on itself, knees bent, heels to buttocks, hands braced against the ground. He’s lithe, flexible, coiled up like a snake.

“Angel,” he gasps.

“Let me heal you,” Aziraphale says.

“Not hurt,” Crowley says. “Jussst...tired.”

“Where are you staying?” Aziraphale says. “Can I take you there?”

Crowley pushes himself up to kneeling. “Why?” he says. “What do you care? Just becaussse I don’t owe you anything doessssn’t mean you owe me.”   
  


Aziraphale walks him home, where the demon sleeps.

In the morning, Crowley snaps his fingers, and his clothing is clean, repaired. He sighs and stands. Aziraphale follows him. They spend the day in a pub, talking and laughing and drinking. At the end of the night, Crowley begins to look a bit melancholy. Aziraphale wonders if he will weep, if he will fly to pieces.

“Can I do anything for you?” he asks again, expecting to take on Crowley’s feeling again. Preparing himself for the shame, the fear he’d witnessed in the square. But Crowley smiles, a little shyly.

“Yeah,” he says, not looking at Aziraphale. His tone sounds challenging, like he expects Aziraphale to refuse what he is about to ask.

“All right…?”

“Stay,” Crowley says. “Stay with me, angel. Just...don’t go. For a while.”

“Oh, my dear. I—”

“Forget it,” now Crowley’s voice is hard.

“No. No, of course I’ll stay. As long as I can.”

“Don’t put yourself out, angel.”

Aziraphale doesn’t respond. Instead, he stays with him for two years.

* * *

In 1800, Aziraphale thinks of that time again when Crowley comes to him with flowers and chocolates to celebrate the opening of his bookshop. To celebrate his continued presence on Earth.

During those two years, Aziraphale began to wonder if Crowley was not just a terrible demon, but perhaps if there was something wrong with him—a kind of metaphysical sickness, perhaps. Something that needed a cure. _Drink this draft and all those pesky_ feelings _, all that_ morality _will be banished to whence it came._ Ought he to tell someone? Someone who could help Crowley? Because Crowley suffered with it, Aziraphale could see, with the opposition between what was expected of him and what he felt, his own inclinations. Aziraphale did not like to see anyone suffer. But was that some kind of sin, to restore a demon to evil, even if it were done as a kindness? After all, it wasn’t as if his soul might be saved.

He’d been there six months, watching Crowley incite economic discord that somehow improved the lot of the vassals, watching Crowley flit off to peasants and men of science while Aziraphale spent most of his time with artists and men of the cloth. He’d seen the reports Crowley wrote to Hell, the way he bent his actions to sound evil, when Aziraphale could see the conscience that drove them.

“Crowley,” he said, one night, as they sat by the fire, sipping ale. “Are you sure you’re really a demon?”

“As opposed to what?” Crowley said, indignant, even as he quirked a half-smile. He looked cozy, warm and relaxed, wrapped in a thick, brown blanket.

“I don’t know. Something else. Something...just something else. You.” Aziraphale smiled, feeling idiotic. But Crowley looked serious.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I never knew what I was. Not really. Nothing ever felt _right_.”

“Right?” Aziraphale said. “You see, that’s why I wonder about you. I thought you were ill, but I don’t think there’s anything _wrong_ , I think there’s something _right_.”

“Shut up,” Crowley said. “Please, angel. Just. Don’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said. His heart pounded, and he began to feel sweaty. He thought Crowley would ask him to leave, but he didn’t. Instead, the demon was silent for a long while, and just when Aziraphale thought to suggest that they sober up, that Crowley retire, as he was wont to do in the evenings, Crowley let out a long sigh.

“I never really _fought_ in the war,” he said. “I spent...a lot of time with Lucifer. But kind of different to that whole group, you know?”

“No,” Aziraphale shook his head. “I wasn’t called to being until the War had begun.”

“You—you were made to _fight_?” Crowley said, incredulous. He sat up, poured more ale from the jug into both their clay cups and took a long drink. “That’s a load of bullshit. But see, that’s the kind of thing…” he shook his head. “I had a lot of questions. About why things were the way they were. About why we didn’t have _choices_ , about why it seemed like things that weren’t _right_ were happening, and we were just supposed to go along with it because She said so. So did that _make_ it right, or were we just supposed to do it anyway...you know, that sort of thing.”

“Dangerous talk,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley bent his head over his drink, almost like a supplication. He took two quick swallows.

“Lucifer...heard me. Talking to Her. Suggested I talk to him. I figured, you know, Lucifer. I mean, he was the Morningstar. He was kind of...a big deal. Didn’t occur to me that he’d get me in trouble. Didn’t occur to me that he _could_ get in trouble. I didn’t know what he was saying to the others. Didn’t spend time with all of them, like. Just him. We’d go off sometimes. He’d show me things.” Crowley shrugged. “I guess I let down my guard.”

Aziraphale rested a hand on Crowley’s back. He was so supple. He smiled at Aziraphale. It made him want to move closer, to put his arm around the demon, and hold him, even though he wasn’t weeping.

“Kind of like this,” Crowley said. Aziraphale froze. He couldn’t hurt Crowley; he didn’t think he ever could, but certainly not now, like this. Crowley couldn’t think—

But Crowley shook his head. “No, but it’s OK, angel,” he said. “You’re not _like_ Lucifer. That’s my point. My point is...it was different, really, with him. I mean, I know you’re not setting me up for a Fall. You stayed. You stayed just because I asked. That’s...that means...”

Aziraphale’s chest felt too full. Crowley searched his face, eyes yearning and tender. Aziraphale swallowed, suddenly afraid.

“That was the Arrangement,” Aziraphale said, desperately. “You scratch my back, so to speak.”

Crowley looked at him, frowning, like was about to argue. Then his eyes flickered down, and he nodded.

Now, in 1800, Aziraphale listens, when Crowley tells him what he’s done, to trick a pair of archangels to keep Aziraphale there on Earth. Aziraphale takes food Crowley gives him—chocolates—and eats it. He displays flowers, right there, in his new shop, that he knows to have grown at the hands of a demon. All of this is wrong, he knows. But he can’t feel the wrongness of it.

Perhaps, he thinks, it’s not Crowley who is ill. Perhaps he is no kind of angel at all.

“What’s the matter?” Crowley says, his face twisting with concern. Aziraphale’s thoughts must have shown on his face, and he looks up, trying to school his face to placidity, but it’s too late. “I thought you’d be pleased?”

“Oh, I am, my dear,” Aziraphale says. He reaches for Crowley, not for his arm or his hand or his shoulder, but for his face, cupping the sharp jaw in his soft hand and ignoring how Crowley’s mouth opens a little in surprise. “I am.”

* * *

It doesn’t last long, Aziraphale’s happiness. In 1862, Aziraphale finds Crowley curled in on himself in a tavern outside of London where he’s gone to do a blessing and a temptation. He flinches at the sight of him. Something must be terribly wrong, he knows. Otherwise Crowley wouldn’t have come here. Aziraphale had, after all, been going to do both for the sake of the arrangement. That was the whole point.

Crowley sees him, grabs his hand.

“Please,” he says. So Aziraphale takes it; it’s hard to touch him when he feels like this. It’s worse, even, than usual, and he staggers a little, with the force of it.

“Don’t do them anymore,” Crowley says. “The temptations. All right? I won’t ask you to.”

“It’s hardly fair.”

“It’s plenty fair. Please. I don’t want you to.”

Aziraphale nods, knowing Crowley feels the movement, even if he can’t see it.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, carefully. “Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

“No,” Crowley says. “Not right now.”

So Aziraphale waits. It’s only a week later that Crowley asks to meet at St. James Park, and Aziraphale thinks he will get answers. Crowley asks, instead, for a favor, and he’s twitchy. Aziraphale still expects, somehow, the paper Crowley hands him to explain something, and instead it says _holy water_. He does still owe Crowley two favors, and this would be the second, but how, he thinks, can Crowley have misunderstood so badly? Hasn’t Aziraphale always tried to _protect_ him? Does Crowley really think that the person who’d taken his sadness away from him would facilitate his giving in to it?

In his rage, he stalks away, regretting it already. He ought to have reached for him, asked him if he wanted to talk, or soothed him again, but he can’t think of taking that on again so soon. He’d barely gotten himself together enough to come today as it is. He can’t think of how Crowley could expect him to want a world without his only friend, a world in which he is alone with only his own pain.

Aziraphale does not question it when he doesn’t hear from Crowley right away. But after fifteen years, he gets worried. And when he starts to look, it quickly becomes apparent to him that Crowley is nowhere in England.

Aziraphale’s heart clenches. Had he found holy water on his own, then? Was that it? Was he gone?

Desperate, Aziraphale locks the shop and traipses through Europe.

But there’s not even a flicker.

* * *

That, and not the fight, is why he’s so surprised, so thrilled when Crowley rescues him from Nazis he’s been stupid enough to think he could outwit. After all, Crowley doesn’t care about their fights. At least, that’s what Aziraphale has been telling himself for the last seventy-nine years, without word from the demon. Still, it’s...well, it’s something to think about. The absence, all those years, after _that_ request, and _Crowley’s here_ and he’s alive, and he’d come for Aziraphale, into a church, and remembered to save his books.

“Are you all right?” Aziraphale asks him, in the car, a beautiful shining thing, perfect for Crowley.

“No worse than usual,” Crowley says. He smiles at Aziraphale. There’s something in the smile that makes Aziraphale sad, even as he finds himself smiling back.

“Maybe we could have lunch?” Aziraphale says, breathless. He half hopes Crowley will say no. But Crowley grins.

“Name the time and place,” Crowley replies.

* * *

Aziraphale thinks he’s OK. They see each other a few times over the next few decades, and Crowley doesn’t ask him for anything. He smiles easily. They laugh together.

And then, early in 1967, he sees him. He’s across the street from the bookshop, at the menswear shop, and at first Aziraphale thinks to call out to him, wave him inside—he must have come to visit, right? But he doesn’t look toward Aziraphale, doesn’t approach the shop.

After an hour, Aziraphale goes across the street. Crowley is not there.

“That man, the one who was just here,” he says. “Red hair. Sunglasses?”

“I don’t know anything” Julian, the man behind the counter repeats.

“Please,” Aziraphale says. “He’s my friend. You can hardly imagine that I’m with law enforcement. You must recognize me—I work just across the street.”

“What’s it worth to you?” the man says.

Aziraphale sighs. _Everything._ He takes out a roll of bills.

The man’s eyes brighten. He talks.

* * *

“I work in Soho; I hear things.” Aziraphale says. _I see things. You, right across from my shop. You, not asking me for what you need. You, not telling me how I can help._ “So, you can call off the robbery.” He passes Crowley a thermos, wondering if the tartan is too much, too obvious, too desperate.

“After everything you said?”

Aziraphale nods. He doesn’t expect the barrage, Crowley begging him to let him take him somewhere, as if this simple favor would remove the stain of this debt. As if anything could.

“Anywhere you want to go,” Crowley says, a kind of desperation in his voice.

 _Is that all? You’re still not going to tell me. Tit for tat. You scratch my back,_ he’d said, once. Aziraphale shoves it down. He has to get away from here.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley,” he says instead, gulping. He steps out of the car before his resolve breaks, and presses his eyes closed.

He hears the car’s other door open and close. Feels, rather than hears, Crowley approaching, his warm body moving closer, wrapping around Aziraphale’s. Aziraphale twitches, trying to pull away, but not trying hard, giving up. Crowley doesn’t let go of him.

“Angel?” he says.

“Why, Crowley?” he says. “Why do you want this? Can’t I help you? Can’t I _do_ anything for you anymore? Please. _Anything?_ ” He sounds petulant. Wishes he could have a moment to compose himself, but no, they’re here, this is happening.

“Hey, hey. I promised you, didn’t I? No unscrewing the cap.” Crowley’s arms tighten around him. Aziraphale lets out a long breath. He’s right. He promised.

“Then why?” Aziraphale says.

“For you,” Crowley says, sheepish. “Us.”

“What?” Aziraphale pulls back enough to looks at him. He’s staring, his eyes deep and caring in a way they shouldn’t be. And he’s too close, their bodies are still touching. They’re like magnets, the two of them, something drawing them together even as Aziraphale staggers back, frantic, his body knocking against the car. “No,” he says. “Stop it. Crowley. No. We can’t.”

Crowley’s face hardens. “Then do it,” he says, advancing on Aziraphale, holding out his hand. “You must have known. Don’t make me suffer. Don’t make me do this on my own. Not after all of this.”

Aziraphale hesitates. His heart breaks at the thought of it. Tears leap to his eyes. Crowley looks, for a moment, triumphant. But they _can’t_ do this, can’t keep playing at this. Crowley was supposed to have been immune; he wasn’t supposed to have felt what Aziraphale felt. It was only ever supposed to be kindness. And now, because Aziraphale had not been careful enough, had not known what it would do to Crowley, it has turned to something cruel. A hundred years of this at least.

So Aziraphale swallows his frailty. If this is what Crowley needs, it is Aziraphale’s fault, so Aziraphale will give it to him. Perhaps for the last time. Crowley looks surprised when Aziraphale grasps his extended hand. He pulls away with a little cry before Aziraphale can finish the extraction, but the pain of it is enough for Aziraphale atop his own. Aziraphale barely notices the shocked expression on his face, the way he stumbles away, the rumble of the Bentley against his collapsed body. Aziraphale barely manages to stand and stagger away before the Bentley roars out of sight. The feeling is too much, paired with his own.

He has broken his own heart.

He knows Crowley doesn’t love him anymore. He knows he did, and now he doesn’t because he took the love away from him, the moment he knew it was there. He’d been so foolish to think his actions wouldn’t have consequences, that Crowley wouldn’t—couldn’t love him back.

So when he doesn’t hear from Crowley again, it’s not a surprise. Aziraphale has always found comfort in routine. And now, once he emerges from his near catatonia, he can’t bear to vary anything. Mornings are for tea. Evenings are for cocoa. Bow-tie, tartan. Ring. Sweater only in the shop. Books must be read at all times. It’s an escape. It’s a bandage around him. It’s the only thing holding him together.


	2. Crowley/After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last, the conclusion.

Crowley doesn’t approach Aziraphale. He knows better. Or he likes to think he does. Once upon a time, he had a theory about what Aziraphale was doing when he soothed him. He’d thought the angel was reading his mind. He never asked the kind of questions Crowley would have expected him to. Never told him to stop pretending to care about the children in the Flood. Never asked him what, exactly, had him so down in Rome.

But there were other things. The way he’d looked at Crowley that night in 1967, an echo of something else, an unexplained caress in 1800, two years ( _two years_ ) in the fourteenth century of the angel sitting beside him, and one night of that Crowley can’t quite remember, just that he’d started to say something, something the angel hadn’t wanted to hear. Had he known? Had he known, that long ago? And if he had, then why had he crumpled up like that when he’d reached for Crowley that last time?

And why couldn’t Crowley stop thinking about him? The angel didn’t want that. Didn’t want Crowley thinking about him all the time, Crowley reaching out for him, skittering, skeletal fingers seeking that soft skin. Long, wraithlike limbs wrapped around him like ropes or chains, holding him down. Crowley’s hissing voice in his ear. Crowley’s love.

But he wouldn’t want the world to end, either. Crowley is pretty sure about that. You don’t love someone for nearly six thousand years and not know _that_ about them. Even if you haven’t had a real conversation with them for the last fifty.

So after he drops the child off at some out-of-the-way hospital, he telephones Aziraphale. Meets him in the park. He looks just the same, Crowley can’t help but notice with something of a start. He’d expected to have something else to get used to. An awful tartan necktie or _argyle_ something or other, maybe. But no. He _has_ discarded the cravat, but only to replace it with that same old bow-tie from twenty years before the cravat. And he’s still in that threadbare waistcoat he can’t keep his hands off of, tugging and pulling like it’s armor that has to be placed just so to work.

“We will win, of course,” Aziraphale says, primly.

Crowley smiles. “You really believe that?”

“Obviously. Heaven will finally triumph over Hell. It’s all going to be rather lovely.”

 _God, what an idiot_ , Crowley thinks, fondly. He should have known it wouldn’t be business. Not really; it never really was. He knows this is what he’d hoped for. But he couldn’t acknowledge it, hadn’t let himself look at it until it was happening.

“Just out of interest,” he begins. “How many first-class composers do your lot have in Heaven?”

Aziraphale averts his eyes at Crowley’s list of composers currently in Hell, smugly says, “They have already written their music.”

“And you’ll never hear it again,” Crowley says, with relish. “No more Albert Hall, no more Glyndebourne. Just celestial harmonies.”

“Well,” Aziraphale begins, and Crowley sees his face twist. He’s got him, he thinks. When he stands up from the bench, Aziraphale follows.

* * *

Crowley doesn’t try terribly hard with indoctrinating Warlock. She likes seeing Aziraphale’s face when he sees them together. And to really enjoy that, Crowley can’t be _too_ demonic—otherwise Aziraphale’s face might do something different, something Crowley hopes it will never do.

After a couple of years, they’ve started going to the pub together or having dinner or drinks most nights. Aziraphale’s let down his guard more than Crowley had hoped. It almost starts to feel like they really are godparents, like there really isn’t any other reason that they need to be here, doing this. They’re doing it because of course they’re doing it, because it’s their lives, because they want to, together.

Aziraphale looks at Crowley like he hung the stars, and it takes Crowley a long time to remember that he never told Aziraphale that he did. That that look means something else.

Crowley is hopeful. They can do this, they can save the world: they have to.

But then the dog doesn’t come.

* * *

“Go off _together_?” Aziraphale says. He looks terrified. But Crowley doesn’t have time for this right now. _They_ don’t have time for this. Crowley feels sick with it, the nothingness of it. How has it become this, after everything? He knows Aziraphale doesn’t mean the things he says. But _Aziraphale_ knows Crowley _does_. He’d felt what Crowley did, after all. Had soothed him when it had gotten to be too much. And as embarrassed as Crowley had been at first, it _had_ been a comfort when he couldn’t imagine one even existed. But now he can’t even meet Crowley’s eyes. _I don’t even like you_ , he’d said. He can’t really expect Crowley to believe that. And so it means nothing. Their last words to each other. After everything—nothing.

* * *

When it’s over, there are weeks of it. Pretending. Well, Crowley doesn’t pretend so much as he waits for Aziraphale to stop pretending.

Crowley can see that he’s different, looser, more relaxed. One day he doesn’t wear the waistcoat, and it doesn’t come back. One day the bow-tie is gone.

One day, signet ring gone from his hand, hair styled so each curl is separate, perfect (Crowley remembers satin and frills and chains) he sits primly beside Crowley on the couch. Crowley shivers at the proximity, at the anticipation. This is it. It’s time. There’s no reason not to, not anymore. He turns, looks at Aziraphale, who offers him a shaky smile, nervous, but joyful. Crowley sees that joy, picks it up. His hand finds Aziraphale’s, tugging it away from where it’s clutched in his lap. Aziraphale looks surprised, but he doesn’t pull away.

“It’s good to see you so happy,” Crowley begins, carefully. He studies Aziraphale’s face as he speaks the unguarded words. He gulps. “I like to see you this way.” It’s not exactly the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said, but you were supposed to say how you felt, right?

Aziraphale hesitates. Crowley wonders if he ought to withdraw his hand. Instead he swallows. “I like your hair,” he says, then feels ridiculous. _I like your hair?_ What is he—a bloody twelve-year-old boy? He bites the inside of his mouth, forcing his attention away from the heat in his face. He has to do this. Aziraphale’s hand is still in his, soft and warm, their fingers laced together. Crowley flickers his eyes over Aziraphale’s face. It’s flushed, his eyes fixed on Crowley. _Good._ Crowley steels himself. “You look like you did that time in Paris,” he says. “I’ll never forget what you looked like then. Satan— _someone_ , you were so pretty, angel, and so so fussy about it.”

Aziraphale’s mouth drops open slightly. He withdraws his hand. “Crowley,” he says, looking down at the couch. Crowley freezes. How has he ruined it already? He’d thought…

Aziraphale coughs. “I don’t understand,” he says, weakly.

“What?” Crowley manages to croak. “’S a compliment. What’s to understand. W-what do you mean? Aziraphale, please, I thought...you know, what, no. Let me just. I lo—”

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale says, cutting him off. “It’s not that I don’t care for you. I won’t deny you. Not again.”

“Then what, Aziraphale? You _know_ what I’m going to say.”

Aziraphale presses his lips together.

“Don’t you?”

“Crowley—”

“ _What_ , angel? Please don’t leave me out here on my own. Not again. We’re free now.” Crowley shakes his head, gripping Aziraphale’s hand. Aziraphale looks down at it. “It’s OK now. Isn’t it?”

Aziraphale swallows. “I thought I’d ruined it,” he says, finally, his voice hoarse. “I thought...it was just me. That I’d have to live with it. Knowing how you’d felt before, knowing you wouldn’t feel that way anymore, and I’d just have to go on loving you alone.”

Crowley’s breath catches; he raises the hand to his lips, kisses it. “You’re not alone, angel. Never been alone. Why would you think I wouldn’t love you anymore?”

But it doesn’t help. Aziraphale’s eyes overflow. “I thought maybe I could gain it back,” he says. “That maybe I could...someday. When it wouldn’t hurt you so. But then, you asked me to go away with you and I... _couldn’t_ , I couldn’t stand the thought of it, Crowley. The two of us up there alone, having lost so much, and me loving you, and you not feeling the same and suffering and me taking your pain and holding it and my pain and…not being able to hide it...” Aziraphale shakes his head. “It was selfish, and I understand if you can’t forgive me but…well, I did feel you should know.”

“What?” Crowley says.

“It was too much,” Aziraphale says. “I’m so glad it worked out this way instead. And if you really...feel that way again, then I—”

“ _Again_?”

“Oh, but I nearly _deserted_ you. It took me entirely too long to see that Heaven would never have let me stay and keep you with me. It would have been just the same as it’s always been. All the hiding and suffering and...don’t you see, Crowley? In the end, I wasn’t strong enough for you. You shouldn’t have trusted me. How can you…?”

“Wait, angel. I don’t—I don’t understand. _Holding_ my pain?”

“Yes. Like I’ve done before. When you were too upset to, to bear it. I’ve never minded, Crowley. Except that last time. I hadn’t thought...I didn’t know you felt that for me. Until I took it from you. And God only knows how I’ve...how I’ve won you back.”

Crowley grimaces. “You mean you... _felt_ it? The stuff I was feeling?”

“Yes, my dear,” Aziraphale says. “And I’m so sorry you ever had to.” He looks apologetic, pitying, his hand reaching out for Crowley’s as if to comfort him. Crowley frowns, can’t figure out how to speak again. His tongue is changing, narrowing and forking in his mouth; this isn’t going how he’d wanted at all. By now he thought he’d known how Aziraphale felt about him. And there wasn’t anything stopping them anymore. He’d thought he’d just flatter the angel enough to make his intentions clear and they’d kiss and maybe hold each other a little and it would all be sorted. Everything had been going so well. He should have known better. All this time, he’d thought Aziraphale was just soothing him, that he’d only been asking Aziraphale to make him feel a little better. He hadn’t known that it hurt Aziraphale.

“Oh, fuck,” he whispers. He moves his hand away from Aziraphale’s and Aziraphale looks down at his own lap.

“So you see?” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “I couldn’t bear it. I didn’t want us to be alone and you needing me and me unable to...to…”

“ _No_ ,” Crowley says. “I didn’t...I didn’t know, angel. Thought you just soothed me a bit, just lifted it off me for a while.”

Aziraphale has gone very still.

“I didn’t know,” Crowley repeats. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I never would have...I never would have asked you to do that for me if I knew what it really was. I never would have wanted anyone to feel—God, Satan—especially not _you_.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale whispers. “I’m sorry, I never meant to...to mislead you. At first I thought...I thought if I could help you, you might talk with me. That we might spend time together. I wanted you to like me. And it didn’t seem fair that someone Fallen should still have to suffer. To no end. And then...you did talk to me, like me, and I couldn’t turn away. I came to know you and then I couldn’t deny you anything, especially not the one comfort I knew I could offer. Crowley, I...I loved you for so long. I never could bear to see you suffer.”

“And here I’ve caused you nothing but pain,” Crowley says. _Someone Fallen_ , Aziraphale had called him. So of course his love would bruise.

“No, no,” Aziraphale says. “ _No_.”

“I’ll never ask you to do it again,” Crowley says. “Don’t worry. Never ask you for anything...Look, maybe I should just...go.” He starts to stand, but Aziraphale grabs his hand again.

“I don’t mean to deny you,” Aziraphale says again, and surges forward, pressing into Crowley. Crowley brings his arms up around the angel. Aziraphale takes a deep, shaky breath, as if he’s breathing Crowley in and trying not to cry. “It’s not what I meant at all. You didn’t do anything wrong, Crowley.”

“I’m a _demon_ , Aziraphale,” Crowley says, but it lacks any bite with his hand pressing softly into the angel’s quivering sides.

“I rather think I know what you are,” Aziraphale says. “And we both know it’s not that simple. We’ve known that for a long time.”

“You know,” Crowley says. “If you’d come with me, if we’d gone, I wouldn’t have...I wouldn’t have suffered. I mean, I wouldn’t have felt I’d lost anything.”

“You love the world, Crowley. All the people. Their creations.”

“Not like you do. Wouldn’t mean anything anymore anyway,” Crowley says. “Armageddon...all that. That was for you. Wanted to stay here with _you_. Never wanted to hurt you. It took me a long time to see how you felt. To think maybe you might really want something with me. And now—”

“I do.”

“I don’t see how I can even ask you now.”

Aziraphale draws back, studies him. “You don’t have to ask,” he says, still holding onto Crowley’s shoulders. “I’m telling you I do. If you still...”

“Of course I _still_ ,” Crowley snarls. Aziraphale smiles, with wet, uncertain eyes and wobbling lips, just a small curl of his mouth that Crowley can’t help returning.

There’s a moment, then, one of those that stretches out long enough that it means something, and Crowley sees Aziraphale’s eyes on his lips, the sincerity in his face, the strength of him beneath all the pretty features and careful coiffing. The cashmere of the new, well-cut suit jacket under Crowley’s hands. He’d stopped doing that, styling his hair like that, dressing like that. When had he stopped doing that? 1967. Crowley gulps, about to ask Aziraphale a question, but Aziraphale leans forward slowly and his mouth is against Crowley’s, the skin of their faces brushing clumsily against each other. His mouth is warm and soft and welcoming, and something explodes inside Crowley, making him give a startled little cry and wrap his arms tighter around Aziraphale, pulling him close because he can never be close enough to see how much he means to Crowley. It’s too much to take in, to much for Crowley to try to show him, but he will. He will. The kiss goes on until it’s dark. Until Aziraphale’s tears have dried, until it’s all they can think about.

“I didn’t think this would ever happen,” Aziraphale says, curling his soft body against him when they finally surface. The bookshop is entirely dark, and neither of them makes any effort to change it.

“Why not? You knew how I felt.”

“But I took it away from you.”

Crowley stares. “No, Aziraphale,” he says. “You couldn’t. Not that. You didn’t take—everything was always still there. You eased the pain, made me feel like I wasn’t alone. It was enough to make me see that we had to wait. That we had to _act_. You always eased the pain. Comes back eventually, though. And you...well, it’s not just pain, is it?”

Aziraphale frowned.

“You mean...I…?”

“Do it now, if you want. Not asking. Just...if you want to...to feel what I do now. Won’t hurt. Much.”

“Oh, _darling_.”

Aziraphale hesitates a moment, then reaches for his hands, clutches them tight and closes his eyes. Crowley feels the sensation of it, as of something flowing out, stabilizing. It feels like a comfort even now, like something steadying. Aziraphale sighs and lets go.

“I see,” he whispers. “Oh, my love. I don’t deserve this much.”

Crowley shakes his head and takes his hands again. “You deserve _everything_. I never stopped loving you. Never could.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure I'm satisfied with this, which is why it took me so long. Come yell at me about it and see what else I'm up to on [tumblr @leilakalomi](https://leilakalomi.tumblr.com) or [twitter @LeilaKalomi](https://twitter.com/LeilaKalomi)!


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